<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Late Night Hot Chocolate by citrusella</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27625291">Late Night Hot Chocolate</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrusella/pseuds/citrusella'>citrusella</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Citrusella's Comfortember 2020 Fics [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Steven Universe (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(Nightmares that are flashbacks), (just to be clear: not stevencest), Anomic Aphasia, Aphasia, Car Accidents, Cracked Gems, Flashbacks, Gen, Head Injury, Hospitals, Hot Chocolate, Major Character Injury, Nightmares, Protectiveness, Steven Universe Needs Therapy, Undead, disney death, flagrant violations of the one steve limit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:54:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,912</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27625291</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrusella/pseuds/citrusella</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Steven? What are you doing?" He stares into the pot.</p>
<p>The gem half's voice comes monotone. "Making hot chocolate."</p>
<p>"It's three o'clock in the morning. Why on earth are you making… hot chocolate?"</p>
<p>The slyness on his face is one pixel away from nonexistent and yet it's practically a traffic cone to his other half, as he remarks flatly, "Because I've lost control of my life."</p>
<p>Or: Steven and Steven both have nightmares that threaten to take them back to... that night... One copes by making the other hot chocolate and pretending he really isn't having any problems.</p>
<p>Comfortember days 16-18: Protective, Flashbacks, Hot Cocoa</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Pink Steven Universe &amp; Steven Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Citrusella's Comfortember 2020 Fics [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2011213</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>lofi fanfics to practice social distancing to</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Late Night Hot Chocolate</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>(Why, yes, that <em>is</em> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIR68SbPg-U">this Rugrats meme</a>.)</p>
<p>...I skipped days 10-15 because I couldn't get my brain to write cohesive fic (maybe I'll go back for them)... but this one? It poured out like <em>butter</em>. And it's on time!</p>
<p>Really is probably read best with the context from Beach City Zombie Club, which is the fic before it in this series or <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27140825">you can just click this link</a>! Some of the context can be gleaned without reading that first so it probably IS possible to read this without the other, but reading this one without what the other laid down might be a bit confusing.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sometimes, in those moments he finds himself asleep, Steven dreams of that night, but he's never sure what's real and what's fake.</p>
<p>Well, okay, he knows the moment he opens his eyes, back in the hospital, is what really happens, and it always ends with the first thing he remembers after being revived: waking up in his other half's arms, words wrested from his tongue and cast off in the fountain, face contorted in confusion because honestly—<em>what happened?</em>—and wait—he's <em>pink, why is he pink, oh geez, did he <strong>DIE</strong></em>—</p>
<p>and then he wakes up.</p>
<p>But everything in between is different every time, as if his mind is trying to piece together a picture book with half the pages ripped out.</p>
<p>If he didn't have Steven as an anchor, he wonders if he'd find himself lost in trying to figure out what he's seeing.</p><hr/>
<p>Steven dreams very little.</p>
<p>Granted, he doesn't really sleep, either.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, when it behooves him to do so, he has precisely one dream, more than any other.</p>
<p>It never changes. Why would it? His memory is solid, unshaking, near-eidetic—snapshots in time.</p>
<p>In fact, without his other half, without the… connection… his humanity seems to bring, only the most intense of emotions flavor the memories. Fright, at the beginning; intense, pervasive grief at the end, even if a life hasn't been permanently lost.</p>
<p>There is no in between. He does not exist in between, except in fleeting <em>want to, have to, need to</em>, a broken gem on the verge of being separated from itself, of fulfilling the lie held so long as its truth.</p>
<p>As inaccurate as Steven's dreams may be, if he didn't have him as a compass, he's certain he would have no idea what he might have missed.</p><hr/>
<p>He always breaks something.</p>
<p>Sometimes it's an arm. Sometimes it's a leg. A rib, multiple ribs, his neck, his pelvis, his skull. Never the same bone twice in a row (though it feels like he's dreamed this enough times to have broken every bone in his body twice over).</p>
<p>It's rare that his gem isn't also broken. Beyond repair.</p>
<p>It brings his mind back to White's head. His gem gone, perhaps forever. Maybe it's not even his, not even him, maybe it's just something stuck inside him—</p>
<p>—No, no, that's not true, it's—</p>
<p>Reset, malfunctioning, empty—</p>
<p>—No—</p>
<p>Shattered, like Jasper, like Mom, like—</p><hr/>
<p>The car comes. Fast. There's no time to react. There's no time to do anything.</p>
<p>He feels the crunch.</p>
<p>
  <em>Want to.</em>
</p>
<p>It's like when he was rejuvenated, he thinks.</p>
<p>
  <em>Need to.</em>
</p>
<p>He's there, but he's not. Separate but together. Awake, in pain, but asleep, numb. …Maybe that part's not him. Or, well, not <em>him</em>-him.</p>
<p>
  <em>Have to.</em>
</p>
<p>He wakes up.</p><hr/>
<p>He never makes sense, and neither does anyone else.</p>
<p>"His bottle rocket dantris leap go, half a crash candy," she says, urgent and convicted despite the absurdity of her words, her hand on his arm, the other person in the room nodding and running off… somewhere. Sometimes she's speaking another language entirely.</p>
<p>
  <strike>Or maybe it's him. Maybe <em>he's</em> the one who just doesn't understand.</strike>
</p>
<p>"I'm going to disc, the painting, it help pink ezay to there," he says back, firm, worried, his hand frantically flinching, nigh imperceptibly, as the people around him ignore him or, at best, shoot a confused glance his way for a fleeting second. Sometimes his words are complete gibberish.</p>
<p>
  <strike>Of course, he only realizes this once he's awake; they make complete sense in the moment.</strike>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <strike>That hurts. Can you call my dad? Are you going to help me? I'm tired…</strike>
  </em>
  <strike></strike>
</p>
<p>Maybe this is really what his brain was like, after the crash. Maybe zombie-fying him ironically served to make him <em>more</em> coherent…</p><hr/>
<p>He is wet.</p>
<p>He blinks.</p>
<p>Connie is above him. She says his name, looks him in the eye.</p>
<p>He blinks.</p>
<p>She leaves his field of vision, lunging toward something to his right. She says his name again.</p>
<p>He turns.</p>
<p>Steven is in the water. He does not move. Steven does not need to touch Steven's grey skin to know he's cold—he <em>looks</em> cold, somehow.</p>
<p>He stares.</p>
<p>It doesn't make it to his face, but the horror stabs him so pervasively that somewhere, deep in his gem, he knows his nonexistent lungs should be hanging onto the whole of his breath, he <em>knows</em> his nonexistent heart should be in his throat, his stomach in his chest. It is a wonder the avalanche of emotion isn't enough to poof him on the spot.</p>
<p>He stares.</p>
<p>Connie is shaking Steven beside him, her voice growing desperate, her own barely-contained emotion spilling out of her overflowing pitcher.</p>
<p>He reaches for his organic half, pulls him into his arms.</p>
<p>Connie allows him to do so. He can guess what she thinks he is about to do. But he knows, deep down, that he can't. Not while he's like this.</p>
<p>He jumps out of the fountain.</p>
<p>He runs away.</p>
<p>He ignores Connie's shouts. He speeds up, trying to separate himself from the sound of her footsteps.</p>
<p>He cannot face her if this doesn't work.</p><hr/>
<p>When Steven is asleep, he knows he can rely on his other half to ground him, providing the sensory input that makes him lucid enough to maybe, just maybe, realize this isn't real.</p>
<p>Most of the time it just incorporates itself into his dream instead. A goat becomes the doctor, the ocean a faucet, a horn a… flatline.</p>
<p>He takes a deep, pained breath in; he opens his eyes to bright fluorescent lights.</p>
<p>…It smells like chocolate.</p><hr/>
<p>Steven's organic half rolls over on the couch. It's his first nightmare back in the beach house, on his first time sleeping there again—he's not sure if he should count that as a blessing or a curse, considering Dad and the gems are probably around but must have better things to do at—he squints at the microwave clock—3 am. Like sleeping or whatever the gems do after his bedtime.</p>
<p>The faintest of glows, maybe just an optical illusion in the darkness, pulses below the microwave, blocking his view of the stove.</p>
<p>His gem half is stirring something. Something… sweet? Brown? It's… geez, what is it?</p>
<p>He stands up and walks over to the kitchen.</p>
<p>"Steven? What are you doing?" He stares into the pot.</p>
<p>The gem half's voice comes monotone. "Making hot chocolate."</p>
<p>…Hot chocolate! Right! "It's three o'clock in the morning. Why on earth are you making… hot chocolate?"</p>
<p>Steven pauses, his stirring hand freezing in place. There's no obvious sign on his face, but Steven, with a closer connection to him than anyone else, can tell where he's considering going with this. With no warning, he goes back to stirring, looking down into the pot.</p>
<p>The slyness on his face is one pixel away from nonexistent and yet it's practically a traffic cone to his other half, as he remarks flatly, "Because I've lost control of my life."</p>
<p>Steven's organic half chuckles at the expert invocation of a prime <em>Anklebiters</em> meme, which is enough for his gem half to put on a subtle expression that reads clear as day to his organic half as satisfaction.</p>
<p>"No, but seriously, without the… uh, um…… meme… why are you… making… it? It's not like you, y'know, eat. You only really do that with me." He leans on the counter.</p>
<p>"This hot chocolate <em>is</em> for you."</p>
<p>He frowns. "…Why? I was asleep."</p>
<p>"You were having the nightmare again."</p>
<p>"What? I—it's—you don't—everything is—I'm—" The word he's looking for dies in whatever cranny of his brain it resided in before the accident… but it would have died on his tongue anyway, shriveling away from being uttered so easily after his meltdown, so it probably doesn't <em>really</em> matter.</p>
<p>Gem Steven knows what he means anyway. "You are not fine. You were having the nightmare again."</p>
<p>"I was not having the nightmare."</p>
<p>"We can see through each other's eyes. You were having the nightmare."</p>
<p>"…Maybe I was. So? I have it all the time. It's… normal?"</p>
<p>"No. It isn't."</p>
<p>He sighs. "I know. But what am I supposed to do? Call up my therapist <em>right now</em>, set up an, uh… uhm… y'know the thing—"</p>
<p>"Appointment," he supplies.</p>
<p>"—yeah… I can't just do that. But it's okay. I'll be… um… I can just go back… to sleep? I'll—"</p>
<p>"It worries you. You're afraid it will happen again."</p>
<p>He looks down. "I am not."</p>
<p>"We should talk about it. With hot chocolate." He gets out two temperature-changing <em>Crying Breakfast Friends</em> mugs and begins to pour the drink into them.</p>
<p>Steven raises a mischievous brow. "…What if I pulled an Angelique and said I'm not thirsty?"</p>
<p>Steven answers as if he's thought about this before. "I don't think the windows would survive my fulfilling Stew Cucumbers' line with the proper volume. And it will wake up Dad."</p>
<p>Steven snorts. "It'll do more than wake him up."</p>
<p>"Also, you're never not thirsty for hot chocolate," he states matter-of-factly.</p>
<p>Steven squints with some amount of sheepishness. He's right. In the cold of last winter and into spring, traveling around the country, around the world, by warp after the Dondai was totaled, they seemed to find themselves in hole-in-the-wall diners with some sense of regularity, ordering hot chocolate to try to talk things over (again), no matter if Steven's organic half had eaten last month or last week or last night. "Hot chocolate" is not a word that seems to stick in his brain, so often it was his gem half making the order… but it had been nice. …Even if the talks hadn't been.</p>
<p>He sharply inhales. "Okay. But we <em>both</em> have to do it."</p>
<p>Steven gives a minute nod, then lifts the mugs off the counter and hands one to Steven. They head to the table, sit across from each other. Right down to the time of night, this could be a diner all over again, except it's his childhood home instead, and a line cook didn't make the cocoa.</p>
<p>The organic half speaks first. "I had the nightmare. I'm probably going to have it again. It is what it is." He takes a sip of the hot chocolate.</p>
<p>His gem half doesn't respond out loud.</p>
<p>This is pretty usual, too; sigh… "What about you? Don't you have the nightmares, too?" This is not a question so much as a confirmation. Steven knows the answer; he just wants Steven to admit it.</p>
<p>His gem half invests his attention in the steam coming off the hot chocolate.</p>
<p>"Steven?" Steven's organic half says.</p>
<p>"I don't need to sleep," his gem half replies.</p>
<p>"That wasn't the… the—wasn't what I asked."</p>
<p>"My nightmares are different."</p>
<p>"…Are you <em>seriously</em> pulling a 'I'm not like other… um…" he pauses, wrinkling his nose, then settles for an adequate substitute, "Stevens' right now?"</p>
<p>If he has a reaction, it's not obvious even to his other half. "My nightmares are consistent. They are the same every time. Yours always change."</p>
<p>Organic Steven tries to start a few different sentences, but all the first words seem to be lost in his brain's junk drawer. He settles for, "And?"</p>
<p>Gem Steven's intense gaze bores deep into his organic Steven's eyeballs. "And there would be no point to experiencing them again. So I <em>don't need to sleep</em>."</p>
<p>Steven knows what makes Steven tick. And right now? The white-skinned, pink-haired teenage gem's expression, demeanor, <em>everything</em> is carrying the exact fear he remembers cutting through the gem half's form back that first time they were separated—a fear no one else would be able to see.</p>
<p>"You're… um… you're…" he trails off.</p>
<p>That his other half would normally have offered the missing word only strengthens his surety.</p>
<p>"You… You don't want to have your nightmare, either."</p>
<p>"I don't need to sleep," he repeats, clearly working to keep his voice level, soft, undangerous.</p>
<p>"Maybe, but you're used to sleeping, because I—we—needed it, before. You just don't <em>want</em> to sleep. Because you're… you're, um…" he grasps around his mug's handle, readying himself for another sip, "c'mon, help me out here…" He takes a sip and holds the mug in his hands, pondering doing it again.</p>
<p>"…I don't need to sleep." He raises the mug to his lips in one fluid motion and sips it altogether too slow. He's stalling, trying to figure out something else that won't make him sound like a broken record.</p>
<p>Steven slams his own mug down with almost enough force to cause some of the hot liquid to slosh out. "<em>That's not what I—</em>" He stops himself from getting too loud once the unmistakable creak of someone rolling around on his bed from the upper story reminds him what time it is and that they're not the only ones here. "I know you don't <em>need</em> to, but………"</p>
<p>He pulls at one of his cotton candy curls, hoping to avoid grazing the scar on his scalp so he can put off unpacking more of his own feelings on that for the umpteenth time for another five minutes, trying to figure out just how much of this particular pause is losing the words and how much is just not knowing where he even wants to go next…</p>
<p>"Stop trying to hide things from me." He wraps his arms around his middle and looks at his gem half across the table, only sounding a <em>little</em> defeated as he continues. "You don't let me do that to you, so why do I have to let you do it?"</p>
<p>Gem Steven sets his now-empty mug back on the table.</p>
<p>He starts again, with a different, unplaceable quality to his words. "I can't sleep—"</p>
<p>He groans, cutting the repeated statement off. "Yes. I'm aware. You've made that—that, um… that—<em>ugh</em>, it's hard to sound angry when I can't get a full sentence out!"</p>
<p>"You do sound angry," Steven's gem half says, unsure if his statement will be reassuring or angering.</p>
<p>Steven's organic half rolls his eyes. "Gee. Thanks."</p>
<p>The gem half looks into his empty mug, yearning for more hot chocolate for the stalling <em>and</em> comforting potential. "I can't go to sleep because I need to protect you."</p>
<p>The organic half furrows his brow. "Protect me from what?"</p>
<p>Across from him, Steven looks into his lap, avoiding his humanity's gaze. "If I don't sleep, I can wake you up from a bad dream. If I do sleep, you will see my dream. I do not think me sleeping is fair to you. I don't need to sleep."</p>
<p>Steven softens at Steven's admission. "That's… that's really nice, of you. I mean, I've already… um… uh… I know what your nightmare is, but… geez, I don't know where I'm going with this."</p>
<p>"The word is 'seen'."</p>
<p>"No, not like that. Well, okay, yeah. But I meant I didn't know what to say next."</p>
<p>His gem half says nothing to help him toward a new thought; his organic half sighs.</p>
<p>"You don't need to protect me." He thinks back to the day he—they—left, and his encounter with Jasper. "I can protect myself." He sips a bit more of his hot chocolate. "Besides, if you're the one protecting me, then who's the one protecting you?"</p>
<p>His gem half blinks.</p>
<p>"Like I said before. I know you're… er…" he pauses and hopes his other half might fill the void… but he doesn't, "you're… feeling… fear? Point is, you don't like the nightmare. I can tell."</p>
<p>Steven can tell Steven is about to say something that he's gonna have to refute so he does it before he can get to that.</p>
<p>"Eh—um… Not paying attention to the way we feel is what got us into that mess with the… um… the—" he gestures, though the gestures wouldn't make sense to someone not literally connected to his consciousness.</p>
<p>"The monster."</p>
<p>He sighs. "…I can't wait until we go back to therapy."</p>
<p>Yes. Right. That's something that's on the schedule for next week. The gem half asks flatly, his tone almost not betraying that it's a question at all, "Will we fuse? Or go separately?"</p>
<p>Across the table, the pink boy's eyes widen. "Oh. Well, I guess we should probably go… um… together? ……Fused, I mean? Don't wanna, um…"</p>
<p>"—throw—"</p>
<p>"—too much at her in one… thing," he finishes, drinking the remainder of his hot chocolate.</p>
<p>"You seem… sad." Gem Steven is not <em>great</em> at telling this, but it is easier with organic Steven than anyone else.</p>
<p>Steven's organic half nods. "I was just thinking we were gonna… um—come back together… tonight, maybe. Or soon. I… miss being Steven with you. It's… It's—…I can wait another week."</p>
<p>"…I want to fuse with you. But I can't."</p>
<p>
  <em>I'm afraid if we fuse, I'll go to sleep. I feel out of sync with you. I thought the hot chocolate would help. But it didn't.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I'm sorry.</em>
</p>
<p>"Hey, it's okay if we can't. Maybe we can just make some more…… of this? And talk some more, slash?—<em>hash</em>—both our nightmares out? I'll cook it this time. I think I got enough sleep to last me a week or two already." His reassuring look is practiced to a T, but that doesn't make it less genuine.</p>
<p>Steven turns this over in his mind, giving his organic half a nod. "…Talking might be helpful."</p>
<p>Steven smiles in turn. "I'll get the stove started, then."</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>